Best Age For Business School

Summary

In a lively and engaging episode of 'The Tiger Sisters,' hosts Jean and Sheree dive into the topic of business school, addressing common queries about the ideal age to enroll and the diverse experiences of being on either the younger or older end of the spectrum. Through personal anecdotes and insightful discussions, they explore the motivations behind pursuing an MBA and the impact of age on the business school experience. The episode also highlights the dynamics of classroom learning and networking opportunities, enriched by the varying levels of work experience that students bring. Whether it's the energy of a 24-year-old or the wisdom of a mid-30s professional, 'The Tiger Sisters' unpack it all with humor and sincerity, making it a delightful listen for anyone pondering their business school journey.

Highlights

• Jean & Sheree discuss their ups and downs of the week before diving into the business school talk. 🌟
• The concept of '2+2' programs for younger students and their unique challenges is explored. 👶📘
• Tackling the stereotype of business school as a '2-year vacation' and what different age groups aim to gain. 🏖️📚
• Personal stories from both hosts about their MBA experiences enrich the discussion. 🎤
• The importance of being open-minded and finding value in diverse experiences during business school. 🌐

Key Takeaways

• Age is just a number: Whether you're 24 or 38, business school can be a rewarding experience if you're ready for the challenge! 🎓
• Network diversity: Your classmates can range from young professionals to seasoned experts, enriching your learning experience. 🤝
• Career transitions: Business school is often a transformative period, offering new opportunities and directions. 🔄
• Lifestyle balance: The balance between partying and serious learning varies greatly across age groups. 🎉📚
• Programs like 2+2 provide flexible pathways for younger applicants, while MSX caters to seasoned professionals. 🔄

Overview

Jean and Sheree kick off the podcast with some personal anecdotes about their week's highs and lows, setting a relatable and engaging tone for their main topic: the best age for business school. They explore how personal experiences and career goals influence the timing of an MBA, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own educational journeys.

Diving deeper, they discuss the average age range for business school students, covering both ends of the spectrum from fresh graduates to mature learners with substantial work experience. The duo highlights how different programs cater to these varied demographics, making business school a viable option for a broader audience.

With humor and personal insights, Jean and Sheree demystify the business school experience, offering a candid look at the social and academic facets. They encourage potential applicants to consider what they aim to achieve and reassure them that regardless of age, the right program with the right attitude can be transformative.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:13: Introduction and Weekly Highlights/Low Lights In the introduction of the episode 'The Tiger Sisters,' hosts Jean and Sheree plan to discuss topics related to business school, focusing on the question of how old is too old to be in business school. Before they delve into this main subject, they share highlights and lowlights from their past week, although Sheree is reluctant to discuss her lowlights, humorously noting that she's been sick, likely with COVID-19.
• 00:13 - 00:31: Main Topic: Age Consideration for Business School The chapter discusses the importance of considering age when applying to business school. It begins with a personal anecdote from a character named Jean, who reflects on her experiences in the past week. Jean shares both a highlight and a low light, often referred to as 'roses and thorns.' Her low light was being sick and out of commission, which was difficult due to her usual busy schedule. This sets the stage for a discussion on balancing life challenges while pursuing further education.

Best Age For Business School Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hi I'm Jean and I'm Sheree and we're sisters in this episode of The Tiger sisters we're going to talk about all things at business school and specifically we're going to talk about how old is too old to be in business school but before we dive in we're going to talk about the highlights and low lights of our past week low lights yeah I don't want to talk about low lights my low lights going to be I had Co [Music]
• 00:30 - 01:00 so Jean what was a highlight and a low light sometimes people say roses and Thorns you know you understand the idea yeah um okay so I'll start with the low light well um I was sick this past week so I was kind of out of commission for a few days and as you know it was very hard for me to like turn off to like
• 01:00 - 01:30 shut off and I just felt really bad about like actually taking the sick day and I felt bad that I was being unproductive but then you were like no like you need to rest like you literally need to like your job is to go lay in bed and that is your number one priority that is your action item for the day and it was actually really necessary and I think like like I kept going because of like adrenaline and I think I actually
• 01:30 - 02:00 was like sicker than I realized and then like once I like turned it off then I was like fully in recovering mode yeah I think it's a trauma response like from your days of working in banking or something or like working response working in finance where you're like constantly pushing yourself where you're just like oh I need to feel productive be productive but honestly like in this day and age especially after the pandemic it's like when people are sick they're sick and they need time to like
• 02:00 - 02:30 recover physically and recover me mentally emotionally from like all of that um so I don't know you were really pushing yourself and I was like your number one job is like to not not do something but like just to relax well yeah it's also like the recurring joke in Tech where um it was really popular the last few years to have unlimited days off but the joke is that like nobody ever takes any days off and by having unlimited days off you actually have people work more because it's just
• 02:30 - 03:00 like psychological yeah know there's a lot of like conversations around like unlimited or like discretionary time off and all that stuff with in Tech because like supposedly if you have unlimited time off you would think people would take all the time that they wanted but people end up taking less time like I think it's supposed to be like mandated in like a more um traditional industry that you have like 10 days off or like two weeks off of the entire year but people in Tech sometimes end up taking less than that if they're not carefully
• 03:00 - 03:30 monitoring their days off yeah not to mention the contrast between American work days versus uh European work style did you see there's this Tik Tok about Europe oh you saw it right was it this guy who was like roaming around Spain yeah he's roaming around Europe and he was like Europe just needs to accept that there are Disneyland they are America's Disneyland where we come and we just Frolic Frolic and and um you
• 03:30 - 04:00 guys don't really have Industries it's like your industry is being historical like understand that and like instead of Shing away tourists who are popping up your country through tourism um he was like this is the hot TI of 2024 I was like it kind of is I hadn't heard it said before but ouch it's kind of true well yeah so that was a low light now oh so that was low light and then um I'll say two highlights so
• 04:00 - 04:30 W was um for I was sick I actually spoke on a panel an AI panel for this xprize event that um turned out to be super fun and I haven't spoken in a public event I haven't done public speaking since before the pandemic um I used to do it a bunch in my role so like I've done speaking and conferences all over so like Vegas Shanghai Tel Aviv La
• 04:30 - 05:00 obviously Toronto like those are just some of the ones I'm thinking of and it's definitely enjoyable but because I hadn't done it for so long I was actually very nervous going into it um and I also have never spoken from my like new I guess position or like role before and in the past I was always speaking sort of on behalf of Snapchat like you know representing the company representing my role um and now in a new
• 05:00 - 05:30 role and I'm representing myself basically and representing us um so yeah and the topic was really interesting it wasn't exactly what I thought it would be it was kind of about like Ai and um like empathic AI in a way and like how do we develop AI in a way that um is true to like humanism um but yeah it was actually really fun because because I
• 05:30 - 06:00 got to almost like formulate my own opinion as I was speaking like it was like I through speaking on the panel I realized I actually have quite strong opinions about the topics um and then I just like was thanky and I said it so yeah it was good to break the ice there and now I'm looking forward to doing it more yeah you seem really jazzed about having that speaking opportunity although I know you were nervous going in but it sounds like it went really well yeah yeah it did go well um and
• 06:00 - 06:30 then the second highlight was this morning I went to a like a women's breakfast together uh with um in Malibu at the little beach house that my friend Amy put on and it was like 25 women and it was just like it was just so cool it was women from all different Industries and we all stood up and introduced ourselves and kind of like talked about
• 06:30 - 07:00 what we're working on and how we can help each other basically we're like this is how you can help me and um it was just it was just really cool um it was really rewarding I met some awesome people it was like a networking event yes yeah yeah um and just the energy was very like warm and supporting supportive and like grounded I don't know it's like feels silly to like say those words but you just totally you can just totally feel the difference when you're like in an
• 07:00 - 07:30 environment and you feel really comfortable yeah yeah I love being around strong women I feel like yeah that type of environment is very empowering uplifting and kind of gives you like hope in the world for like what women can do so love that dramatic I said it um okay what about you okay so I have to think about what my highlight is because I feel like a lot of things happen this week but I need to figure out like what is the number one thing I think the low light
• 07:30 - 08:00 for me um honestly is like I'm approaching my 29th birthday which is coming up very soon in a few days and I'm just feeling like a real like profound sense of like loneliness I would say like I don't know I feel like 29 is a weird year where it's like supposed to be full of Transitions and stuff but now I'm like in a new city trying to figure out like my new community and like you know this new chapter where I'm working like for us
• 08:00 - 08:30 like on our own and like not having like a formal boss or a program and also like one of the weird things I didn't realize with working alone is like how many limited interactions you have with other people unless you make those interactions so I've been trying to like really put out an effort to like go to like alumni events and then meet friends over the weekend and stuff otherwise I feel a little bit like I feel like isolated in that way and I love hanging out with you we hang out with each other all the time saying you're lonely when
• 08:30 - 09:00 you live with me not you I mean but saying you have a profound sense of loneliness won't be my roommate but it's kind of different like we spend so much time together you know in both a professional and personal setting and I think like without you like I would be like miserable you know in like a new city especially one like La where I don't have like any like roots or ties in I would like be like M and so like being with you is like I am not Miz I'm like having fun but it's also just like really tough being in like a new city
• 09:00 - 09:30 whereas like had I gone to New York or SF I would have more easily had like people like hitting me up and being like let's hang like every night of the week which is the environment I'm used to coming out of business schools yeah I think it's more just the the transition for you because you're coming from an environment where you're literally surrounded by like thousands of people every single day yeah and you have so many groups of friends that coming back into the real world it just can be
• 09:30 - 10:00 a tough transition especially if you're not in a city where there's a lot of density and like I know you're saying like a lot of your friends haven't actually moved to LA yet like the ones who are planning to be here so I think just know that this is a temporary time and because if you know something is temporary you can kind of like feel more comfortable in the discomfort of it if you know what I mean yeah um and then just kind of be like okay what are some
• 10:00 - 10:30 of the positives of this time and like you're like I can focus on me I can like work on developing these things and then like lean into that more knowing that it's a temporary period and you know it's only I think about Cheryl Sandberg she has this like saying like the three PS it's not personal it's not pervasive and it's not permanent and like I think about that quite often whenever like a problem comes up okay because like oh it's just like my social life if things weren't moving along in like other parts
• 10:30 - 11:00 of my life I'd feel like a little bit more down it's not permanent like you said it's like time bound like it's just a transition permanent pervasive and oh personal like this has nothing to do with like you know people like not wanting to hang out with me it's just like the circumstance so yeah that's kind of something that I've been feeling like I would say that's a low light especially because like if my birthday is approaching and it's usually like a very like festive time I would say so it's like another
• 11:00 - 11:30 yeah it that's happened um and then I would say a highlight for me is that um two of my best friends have gotten married and are getting married and I get to be a part of both of those experiences um and they're like two girlfriends that are so special to me that I get to see them and also support them and celebrate them in this like momentous part of their life and that's really special I like love love and love seeing them in love and have seen them in different like parts of their lives
• 11:30 - 12:00 chapters of their lives and so seeing this new chapter emerge for them is like for me really um special yeah maybe that ties into your low light too it's just that like so much is going on for your best friends and you're also like a big part of that and you investing a lot of your time since you're the bridesmaid and you were like the def facto bridesma for the last one you're like investing a lot of your time and energy into like moving them into their next chapters and you
• 12:00 - 12:30 haven't really fully done that yet because you're in this like in between period not not me are you my therapist do you do I need a venmo here that'll be 3.99 seriously um I think I mean that's a really I didn't even think about it that way but that's probably an accurate analysis of like them literally like being with the love of their lives the love of their life for you know the rest of their life and then me kind of being like la la la I'm in a new place
• 12:30 - 13:00 like trying to figure it out still yeah well and it's not passive for you either like you are very involved in like ushering them yeah into this next period and you're like dedicating a lot of your like time and energy and like you know emotional bandwidth and stuff to that for them so don't forget to take some time for yourself that's true there's kind of like a little there's a bit of a dissonance there yeah
• 13:00 - 13:30 um okay so highlight and low light okay roseen Thorns I like that we should do that the future segments yeah that we have I like it well you can tell us if you guys like it yeah let us know you hate it if you enjoyed us opening up and sharing our lives with you if you hate it leave a comment if you like it leave five comments if you hate it leave 10 comments
• 13:30 - 14:00 huh engagement okay so now moving on to the topic of this podcast episode we're going to talk about how old is too old for business school or how young is too young for business school because this is a comment that I've seen come up several times on my social media I know it's top of mind for many of you as applications for round one are starting for business school what is the average age of business school students so I graduated from Stanford's business school about 1 month ago and I graduated
• 14:00 - 14:30 from Harvard Business School 7 years ago I did some research online and the average age of someone who's enrolled in business school is between 27 to 29 years old depending on which business school program you're a part of so how old were you when you enrolled in business school I was 26 turning 27 but I have a late birthday in December so I was 5 years out of undergrad and most other people my year
• 14:30 - 15:00 were 27 okay almost everyone yeah and I was 27 turning 28 so like I was more and then like the normal category yes but we were both exactly five years out of undergrad yeah so we were the same year age yeah so why did you decide to apply to business school and you did so I was a few years into my job um I had worked at LinkedIn for four and a half years at that point in product management and the first like three years were incredible
• 15:00 - 15:30 especially because I was in a very new role learning very rapidly my learning curve was super Steep and I loved my job and I was in person Co happened and so for the last like year and a half things were remote SL like hybrid but I felt like towards the the later years of my role I wasn't learning as much or as fast as I had in the beginning and I knew that I wanted like a more diverse set of experiences and so I my at the time who I'm and I
• 15:30 - 16:00 was like either I'm going to a or I'm going to apply to BU school and hopefully get in and he was very supportive along that well so how many years into your job was that it was four years into my job oh okay so you like pretty much decided and then applied right away it wasn't like a long process it was something in the back of my mind because like I saw you do business school it was like a it was a long process in terms of like taking the gr and like that like squared away to see
• 16:00 - 16:30 like even if I had like a fighting chance to like get into one of these programs given my standardized testing score I was like 4 years maybe like three and a half years actually yeah you had um Role Models at LinkedIn who had gone to business school like you you mentioned har he went to the GSB yeah so my like VP went to the GSB like a director on my team went to HBS some people had gone to like hos and like Wharton so like that was very much like in the culture of the people who I
• 16:30 - 17:00 worked like most closely with so it felt like a very normal thing although people were like oh it was a great life experience we didn't really like need it because like we worked in Tech I mean who's to say like if they needed it or not like who's to say but like yeah so they're very supportive of me but I think they wanted me mostly to stay at LinkedIn they're like selfishly yeah stay on my team yeah and I think like three and a half four years was like a good number like a good amount of time to be at LinkedIn because the average
• 17:00 - 17:30 amount of time spent working in Industry before going to business school is four to five years yeah cuz there are people who go just after two years or even after three years yeah so a lot of business school programs have deferred programs which they also call 2 plus two because you apply in undergrad you wait for two years basically you work for two years and then you go to business school for two years well you apply in undergrad and then they give you the decision right away so like you get in
• 17:30 - 18:00 but they say like you can't start for at least 2 years so go and do your job or like whatever it is get some experience for at least two years and then come back but you've already been accepted so yeah but also the 2 plus two program sometimes people defer that even more so they take even more time to work before going to business school but they have this amazing admissions Acceptance in their back pocket while they're working in industry for two plus years I think the people who go straight out of like 2 plus two like they only work for 2 years
• 18:00 - 18:30 like it's it sounds like it's a more challenging experience because they are on the younger end like they're 24 as compared to like 27 plus maybe 29 and that's like a pretty big age difference I would say and also experience difference especially at HBS you talk about your work experience so much in the classroom because as I mentioned last time it's the case study so a lot of it is the richness of the class discussion is based on the experience of everyone in the class if you've only had 2 years
• 18:30 - 19:00 of work experience and you just don't have as many stories to draw upon yeah and especially at that point too if you're like 24 it depends on like the industry that you've worked in but like many of these people like work at like mbb like in consulting or also like in finance like McKenzie Bane BCG BCG yeah like I've never heard mbb before that's like a new thing no it's not people call it mbb all the time not generational Gap yeah not really that's what I'm saying
• 19:00 - 19:30 it's a new thing like it wasn't like people weren't saying mbb like you know yeah they were saying back in my day they were saying McKenzie Bane BCG deoy KPMG oh they were also saying um yeah Merl Lyn yeah when we were you know conversing in the horse and buggy yeah we weren't saying mbb we had to say out the the words Mackenzie Bane BCG um Leman Leman Merill all those companies I think that like
• 19:30 - 20:00 the age gap between like a 24 year-old and also like a 29-year-old experience Gap can be quite Stark and like I've also heard anecdotally from people who are on the 2 plus two who only take two years to F that like it can be a bit of an isolating experience mhm yeah I could see that yeah and honestly it's not that big of an age difference like just like a few years is not really like a huge age Gap but um there's kind of like a condescension like a feeling where like
• 20:00 - 20:30 and like I saw this also at the GSB too for like our classmates who are like 24 25 or just a few years younger there was like they're the baby of the class like so cute and like they did not appreciate that at all yeah yeah yeah I kind of fed I guess maybe like the flip side of it though is if you are coming in and you are the younger person you only have a few years of experience I guess like the other way to say it is that you have the most to learn right like you do have the least work experience so everything you learn from everyone is that much more
• 20:30 - 21:00 valuable to you because you're starting from like a smaller base people in business school like they want to go to learn from other people and if they feel that they you have nothing to offer or like nothing they can like learn from you whatever it might be in like your Walk of Life whether it's personal or professional they kind of write you off they like will write you off and like that's like completely unfair but like it is like an like a darker undertone I would say Cy under the C underbelly where they're like you know everyone's coming into business school everyone is very qualified like you've made it past
• 21:00 - 21:30 this point you were handpicked by the admissions committee blah blah blah but then like I think people are like looking to make those connections and you might have a lot to offer as like a 24 year-old but like on first glance like there will be classmates who will write you off I think another interesting perspective that I just thought of is that you could say that the people that come in through through 2 plus two are like sort of higher beta um acceptances because they haven't actually gone
• 21:30 - 22:00 through there's more discrepancy or disparity between like between them because they don't have any work experience so you're just taking a BET right as in the admissions committee you're like okay this is a person that just graduated from undergrad I think they're going to be just as good if not better than the people that we'll admit in like two years or 3 years like looking at their pool right so they're kind of like taking more of a bet on you and like you don't even know what these people are going to do I don't know so it's kind of interes I never thought about it that way higher beta or higher
• 22:00 - 22:30 Alpha I mean honestly I think the HBS 2 plus2 admissions rate is lower than the normal admissions rate of like people getting in I mean that would make sense um so like supposedly it's like more competitive and more selective but yeah like you haven't done anything in the workforce to then like warrant you to go to business school you must have had a really good track record or like potential to you know do something great right yeah so they're like really betting on your potential but that can go you know amazingly or it can go
• 22:30 - 23:00 sideways but they can't retract so if you end up like applying to a 2 plus2 program and you get in like I would say if possible take more than two years in the workforce like 3 years three and a half years like whatever you can so that you get more work experience yeah and also like if you're learning about something that you have never experienced before it's a much more like academic learning experience which is is different than like going into it
• 23:00 - 23:30 learning about it having had some experience yourself yeah totally all right so let's move on to the flip side of that like on the older end of the spectrum so like the younger end is around 24 years old and the older end I would say like anecdotally from my class is like mid to late 30s yeah um I think the oldest person in our class was like probably like 36 or 38 years old I think it's like on the very very high
• 23:30 - 24:00 end what are your thoughts there on like going to business school in your mid to late 30s if it's the right path for you you should do it I think it could be an amazing experience you probably do have to like potentially like not roll your eyes at like the antics of 20s something year olds because people go to business school for all different reasons one of those reasons is to literally just take a break yeah like if you've been grinding 2E vacation is what some people call it especially if they worked in
• 24:00 - 24:30 finance yeah and especially if they know they're going back to finance so people have all different goals going in um and for some people their goal is to party their face off for two we two years so what do you think about going to business school when you're older yeah we had some of our classmates who I think on the older end like like you mentioned like rolled their eyes when like there's a party bus going up to San Francisco on like a Thursday night or something it was just like those typ of things if you're on the older end like
• 24:30 - 25:00 you've seen it you've done it you don't need to like party your face off anymore and many people I think your body rejects it seriously you drink one sip of tequila and you're like nope that's fine but I would say a lot of our older classmates as well a lot of them came in with children and they'll go to business school they'll bring their children and their partners with them and when you have like obligations to another human being AKA a child at like 700 p.m. like you're not going to go party your face off so I think child it's like different it's a different way to approach
• 25:00 - 25:30 business school altogether I would say yeah just because they're in a totally different life stage phase yeah life stage so by definition they're not going to have the same type of experience yeah there's another program at Stanford through the business school that's not the MBA but it's called the MSX and it's designed instead of it's a 2-year program it's a one-year program and it's like an expedited MBA program where you get to go go through all the GSP classes um well most of them and people who
• 25:30 - 26:00 enroll in this program are usually 10 years into their career already so if you are on the like older side um and you don't want to be part of the MBA class and do it for two years you only want one year you have that option at the GSB but sometimes there's tension between the MSX classmates and the MBA classmates how so like we'll be in the same class together and one of the stereotypes is that like mbas are like lazy they don't care they're here just
• 26:00 - 26:30 for a two-year vacation that's how the MS xers view us and we as the MBA Class View them as like more Boomer and like try hards because they only have one year to do the entire like curriculum they like try much harder and they have a much larger workload okay and so there's kind of like an unspoken or maybe spoken like tension but what's wrong with that what's wrong with if they're try hards like they're messing up the curve or something um will sometimes be put in the same group
• 26:30 - 27:00 project as them and when like our grade depends on it or their grade depends on it like you know it's just like a misalignment of what the people want yeah but do they care about grades or they just like want to get the most out of it they're just much more serious students it's both like I think because they're serious students the way one way that they value um that or measure that is through the grades and so they're aiming for like much more participation much more like just like Tri hard in class and there was like a tension in
• 27:00 - 27:30 the GSB that like existed there that being said there are some really wonderful people friends and classmates who are part of the MSX class yeah um who like I really really cherish I've had classes with them they're wonderful but like there is like a overall General tension how big is the MSX class 90 people so it's much smaller okay and then the regular GSB classes 420 okay 420
• 27:30 - 28:00 I would like to do MSX you already have an MBA so I don't think you can I mean you can but like you would learn the same things what you should do you should do there's two other programs at Stanford one is called the exec em okay well EMA Executive MBA you don't get a degree for that do you no it's like a onewe program I think your company can sponsor it okay yeah um and you can go and you like still learn from these like amazing professors that I've
• 28:00 - 28:30 had we have that at HBS too I mean as far as I know we don't have this MSX program but we do have exec MBA and the like joke is that that's how HBS makes the majority of its Revenue I'm sure EXA that's like B2B yeah pretty much you're getting like companies to pay for it yeah exactly that makes a ton of sense for like a week I don't even know how much it costs but I'm sure it's something like way larger in comparison until like a full two years yeah and
• 28:30 - 29:00 then the second way you can go back to Stanford and take the classes is if you go back as a distinguished like fellow oh yes and these people were in my Jean Lou distinguished fellow at Stanford I think it's like a good ring to it these people are literally like in their 60s distinguished fella well like they're in their 60s and I had they like sat in my classes okay and they didn't get graded but like they get to like they some my real estate class I'm in my private Equity class and
• 29:00 - 29:30 they get to sit in on these classes but it's like a program that you have to apply to and I think Stanford like actually looks at their career with like some rigor is there like a minimum age that I don't I'm going to be the youngest distinguished fellow that I don't know about but it's kind of fun having like a class of like being in class with so many different types of people and I guess all this is to say is like be a nice person and like say hi to people and don't like even if
• 29:30 - 30:00 there's like a weird age Gap like just be kind be kind and you know you're so good at that that's something I totally admire about you I know we've like joked about it before like I'm the type of person like the example between Sheree and I is like if we go buy something and we're like checking out like Shere will be like hi how's your day like long day like the weather is amazing isn't it like what do you recommend here and I'll just be like um AMX you'll
• 30:00 - 30:30 dissociate yeah you're just you're just better at like connecting with people well I enjoy it I think like whenever Gan and I are in the Uber I'm like talking to the Uber driver I'm like have you just started or do you have a long night you know well sometimes I obviously like it to be like quiet when I like get off a plane and I'm like exhausted but like I try to really engage with people and that's like very fun for me okay I think that's our episode okay thanks so much for tuning
• 30:30 - 31:00 in to this episode of tiger sisters podcast and we'll see you next time and let us know what other topics you want us to talk about yes and if you like this content make sure you like comment and subscribe thanks bye bye